Twenty-five years ago today, an Illinois court overturned Gary Dotson’s conviction for rape and aggravated kidnapping after DNA tests performed on the biological evidence in the original rape kit excluded him as the perpetrator. This was the first exoneration of an innocent prisoner in this country based on post-conviction DNA testing, and it was not […]

Some computer simulations focus on the risk of Ebola spreading to other countries. Alessandro Vespignani, at Northeastern University, creates those models, using information about air travel and other kinds of transportation. His work suggests that Ebola could find its way to African nations like Ghana, Gambia, and Senegal. “There is a tangible risk of spreading […]

In a paper published in 2011 Markus Brückner, then of the University of Adelaide, estimates the impact of aid on 47 countries between 1960 and 2000. Donors tend to give less to faster-growing countries, he says, which can produce a negative correlation between growth and aid. By looking at periods when severe weather and dramatic […]

When Northeastern University alumnus Charles Svirk and his best friend Matthew Valich, a graduate of Emerson College, released Photos to Photos in the App Store in mid-July, they warned potential users: If Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity had a baby, this would be their wild child. With a description like that, it’s no […]

Wendy Parmet, a law professor at Northeastern University School of Law, is one of three legal scholars who prepared a report for the American Civil Liberties Union that warned about overreach by the government in responding to pandemics. While Parmet said the new text is very broad, it has clear limits. “It only applies to […]

On reining in the cost of higher education, Baker said the state should offer students the chance to complete college in three years, incorporate more online education, and seek guidance from Northeastern University on how to build a similar co-op program for students in the workplace within public higher education. He said, “We’re not going […]

Let’s get one thing straight: You are not going to get Ebola. Donald Trump is not going to get Ebola. You are more likely to be killed by Batman, the ride. Ebola-like viruses have already breached our borders, and there were no secondary infections. There are airport workers whose job it is to identify passengers […]

Former UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon was outraged when he found out that a video game company was using his image without paying him a dime. So he filed a lawsuit. And last week, a federal judge hearing his case issued a ruling that is poised to upset college athletics as we know it. The […]

In a paper to be delivered at the USENIX Security Conference next week, six academic researchers analyzed nearly 1,500 suspicious e-mail messages targeting the World Uyghur Congress (WUC). The team found that, while the malware managed to reliably evade detection by many antivirus programs, the attacks were relatively unsophisticated, using known vulnerabilities that had already […]

As Market Basket business negotiations go on behind closed doors, the drama of the ordeal is playing out on a very public stage. After what seemed like much silence, there came a frenzy of press releases issued over the weekend, with both sides pointing fingers at the other as to why a deal has yet […]

Commission President Steve Soboroff said: “What is important is that there is integrity in the process and that the public has the perception that there is integrity in the process.” Criminologist James Alan Fox, a professor at Northeastern University, agreed. He said flawed crime statistics can hurt public confidence in a police department. “The bigger […]

Amid heated debate, the Ebola virus came to the United States on Saturday, August 2, 2014, aboard a Gulfstream jet chartered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The virus was carried in the bloodstream of Doctor Kent Brantly, who travelled within an Aeromedical Biological Containment System—a hermetically sealed, transparent plastic tent that isolated […]